Why? Does nothing come to mind about my main argument?
Yeah, every story doesnât need to be profound to be enjoyable. Metzenâs got a unique style that he is hyper passionate about, and people latch onto that. That was Blizzardâs whole gig for a long whileâreassembling existing ideas into a fun, accessible package.
Now weâve got corpobeaurocracy chasing formulaic design in the hands of a generation of creatives obsessed with deconstructionism. Which is why Metzen is the last shot Iâm giving this.
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Metzen may have been the orignal creator, but blizz is no longer a small indie company with three people who had the final say on things. So itâs kinda moot when discussing that, because even now, Metzen probably gets overruled a lot by his bosses.
But even Metzen in a relatively recent interview says heâs taking a hands off approach, that heâll voice his opinion on things where necessary, but heâs generally going to be letting his team collaborate and write on their own. Because him being very hands on is what caused him to wear himself out and leave the first time around
So donât expect too many formulaic changes going forward. Just going to disappoint yourself otherwise
Uhm⌠No, not at all. No piece of shared media works like that. The copywrite owner always has final say on canon, period. It didnât matter what Stan Lee believed was true about Spider-man (before his passing obviously), if Marvel decided something else was true? Their truth won. George Lucas can say that there were no more Sith after Vader and Palpatine died, but it doesnât mean squat when Disney takes over and says âwell, Palpatine only died a little, and weâre gonna have a whole bunch of Sith in the next trilogyâ.
The only person who has any say over canon is whoever is currently writing the story, with approval from the IPâs owner.
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Iâm not sure who should overrule him if heâs the head of the creative department.
Even a large company has its top bosses and heâs one of them, as far as I know.
But that is not the point at all. The point is that Metzen, the original creator of the Warcraft world, collaborated with his team to create Chronicle in order to provide more clarity about the Warcraft universe. The books were sold on this premise.
If someone who was not or only marginally involved (Danuser) later retconned this to make room for his own creative outpourings (Shadowlands+), that is not a legitimate source to call into question the credibility of Chronicle at all if we look at an event like wrathgate (wotlk).
The interesting thing about this statement is that it confirms what I said, emphasizing Metzenâs historical role in the creation of Warcraft lore. (whether you like it or not - this is not important for questions of authorship)
I donât expect anything. Iâm discussing authorial intent.
Yes, this is the legal point of view.
So youâre right - from a legal perspective.
But not from an artistic perspective.
Since we are discussing a (fictional) historical event from the past, I believe the latter is decisive.
This is also how a literary analysis works.
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Also not true.
Phantom Menace was made by George Lucas. Easily his least-beloved movie from Star Wars. Timothy Zhan wrote the original Thrawn trilogy, which post-RotJ revitalized Star Wars among the fandom. Just because the OG creator made something doesnât make it have greater artistic merit, because artistry doesnât work like that.
The Night Gwen Stacy Died is among the most seminal Spider-Man stories, ever. Stan Lee did not write it. Beyond Spideyâs origin story, nothing Stan wrote for Spidey even comes close to that one story in the hearts and minds of Spider-Man fans.
And donât even get me going on Batman and how many of his stories were written by people other than Kane and Finger, or how few were.
Artistry has nothing to do with the original creator; artistry is based on a workâs own merits.
THAT is how literary analysis works.
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The old Star Wars expanded universeâŚ
It was some of Star Wars BEST lore at the time and none of it was written by Lucas.
Even though Disney decanonized all of it, they been slowly reversing course on that and bringing bits and pieces of it slowly back into canon. Thrawn for example was made canon by them in the rebels cartoon I believe
But more to the point, thereâs plenty of examples of people on the outside who know a IP better than the creator does and are allowed to write a story or multiple stories in that given universe that stick with us and make a huge impact
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Well, I didnât say that, did I?
I stated that, from an artistic (integrity) standpoint, authorial intent is critical when interpreting a work. I was contradicting your statement that it is up to the rights holderâs interpretation. Thatâs only legally true. For example, the rights holder has the authority to determine what is and is not canon. However, he cannot intervene retroactively in the authorâs vision and claim that his story was always intended in the way he stated it. That is not how the creative process works.
If you saw it differently, youâd have to believe Danuserâs claim in Shadowlands that the entire story with the burning Legion was part of the Jailerâs plan, which was even monitored through micromanagement. And if you do that, big oof.
When it comes to interpreting a text from the past, it is not about getting what you want or like, but about discovering what the author intended to say. When you attempt to interpret the text in the manner (that your client desires f.e.), you are falsifying history.
For this reason, it is significant when Warcraftâs creator sells his work (Chronicle) as hard canon. In other words, he wanted it to be interpreted as such. It wasnât meant to be told solely by an unreliable narrator. Danuserâs team changed this retroactively in order to avoid being tied to consistent storytelling. When you realise this, you can take a more nuanced view of the situation and, most importantly, you will not be taken for a fool by the corporate. In my opinion, the entire thing is a scam, because the Hard Canon part was a deciding factor for many people to buy it.
Iâm only responding to this because Iâm not familiar with the other two examples.
I know the Thrawn trilogy and I like it very much myself. But as I explained in detail above, itâs not about quality. Itâs about rewriting, recontextualising and relativising. The trilogy takes place after the return of the jedi, and as far as I know, Zhan didnât rewrite anything George Lucas wrote.
Ironically, Zhanâs story has been completely rewritten. Nonetheless, heâs the original creator of Thrawn, and his vision of the character will always be the âtrueâ Thrawn, whereas Filonisâ iteration will always be fan fiction from an artistic standpoint, despite the formal copyright.
tldr: Only da Vinci can paint beards on his works. If someone else does it, it is like vandalism, even if he has ownership rights. Therefore it also doesnât matter if itâs the mona lisa or a stickman horse.
And again: This is the artistic/interpretive perspective, not the legal one.
Sometimes, yes. Rather very rarely imo.
Most of the time itâs worse.
Much of the EU also adheres to the original trilogy and does not seek to change it.
Timothy Zahn was also bought in to write the new thrawn novels though. Thatâs how beloved the character is and how respected the author is
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I was gonna try and respond to the rest of what youâd typed, but to be perfectly honest, Iâm not sure of the point youâre trying to make now. It feels entirely too convoluted to me, mixing âoriginal authorial intentâ with âcanonicityâ in ways that neither really fit. But that is very possibly me not getting your point.
So hereâs the thing about that.
Metzen wrote the story for Legion. It was already done by the time he left. It was also the first expansion to release following Chronicles. It also immediately put the question of Chronicles as âhard canonâ to bed when it contradicted Chronicles regarding the fate of the Titans and the existence of Argus.
Well before Danhausen went and spoke (always a mistake for him) and used the âtitanâs perspectiveâ line, we had reason to question the veracity of Chronicles to some degree.
Chronicles was meant to tighten up the lore. It was meant to take some of the plotholes Metzen made and fill them, the loose ends he left dangling and tie them off, but it wasnât meant to hold them to a singular path through the past. Metzen never described it in that way.
Except⌠No. From an artistic standpoint, both versions of the character can be seperately evaluated, while acknowledging one is the prior canonical version and the other is the current canonical version.
Again, Batman. Iâll stick with him since you said youâre unfamiliar with Spider-Man.
Bob Kane and Bill Finger originally created Batman. They made that character, wrote his first story, etc. They gave him a very basic origin story.
Frank Miller, who wrote Batman Year One, did not create Batman. He came around something like 40 years later and took elements of that original origin story, threw out others, and vastly expanded on it to create the most definitive origin for Batman to date, one that heavily inspired not only later writers, but also movies like Batman Begins.
Frank Miller did not create the artistic equivalent of fan fiction, just because he isnât the original creator. That is just silly nonesense talk. He did, in fact, create art. And he did so regardless of the intentions of the original creators.
And this should all be moot regardless, because Metzen only started dictating the Warcraft story with WCIII. He himself is not the original author of the franchise; he simply expanded it and did a much better job than those who came before him. If weâre going to keep with your argument, he effectively also only wrote glorified fan fiction.
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Chronicles was less than canon before the ink was dry. And that comment is no better than Afrasiabiâs comment about Sylvanas being behind the Wrathgate.
Metzen is barely more reliable than Afrasiabi. And only because he was a founder. Afrasiabi probably personally wrote more for WoW than Metzen did, and even he screwed up when making statements that were inaccurate according to established lore.
So, the Wrathgate might have succeeded, if Sylvanas didnât order the Forsaken to use a special blight created specifically to kill the Lich King? Or the Wrathgate might have been a success if Putress hadnât betrayed everyone? Because itâs possible that the writer of that statement wasnât particularly clear on what the story was going to end up being.
Personally I view the whole Wrathgate thing like this.
Sylvanas gave the order to use the new plague / blight but only on the Lich King. We know the Forsaken were planning on using it against the scourge at some point because you literally test to see if it affects undead during questing in Dragonblight.
Before I can ship you off to Doctor Malefious with the good news, you will have to run a simple field test of the blight with the modifications I have made.
The hungering dead stream out from what remains of Old Wintergarde. Commandeer a vehicle from the east gate and drive it northeast through Vengeance Pass until you reach the twin towers at the southeastern edge of Wintergarde. Drop the blight bomb on the undead that cover the area. Report back to me with the results!
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/Spread_the_Good_Word
And we know that it was Sylvanas that commissioned the development of the new plague / blight as early as Vanilla. Primarily to use it against Arthas and the scourge
Lady Sylvanas has called upon the Royal Apothecary Society. The Dark Lady believes our knowledge coupled with the newfound magic will provide the key to Arthasâs demise. She has challenged us to concoct a new plague, a plague deadlier than any ailment on Azeroth. This new disease will bring Arthasâs Scourge Army to ruin.
https://warcraft.wiki.gg/wiki/A_New_Plague
However Putress, who personally oversaw the deployment of the new plague / blight at the Wrathgate turned it onto the Alliance and Horde. In which both parties later learn that he did this because he was working for Varimathras, and by extension, the Burning Legion. I honestly doubt Sylvanas would order the new plague / blight to be used on her allies (aka the Horde) on the off chance that it failed. Which it did. As if the Horde found out that she was behind it in any way (which she was from a certain point of view), they would keep a closer eye on the Forsaken. Which ended up happening as KorâKorn guards were stationed within the Undercity to keep a closer eye on the Forsaken.
Hence why I never brought the conspiracy that Sylvanas knew Putress would betray her and framed him for it⌠even though he was there at the scene and he was the one who gave the order to use it on the âlivingâ.
I can think of one example from a certain point of view. And that is Destiny 2: Forsaken.
From our PCâs point of view, Uldren Sov is the main antagonist of Forsaken. He was the one who killed Cayde and unleashed the Scorn (undead fallen) upon the Tangled Shore. The Scorn even refer to him as âfatherâ. However, through cinematics that our PC does not know about but we the player do, we can infer that there is something else going on. That Uldren is being manipulated. Someone or something is posing as his sister Mara. Whispering to him, making him do things all in the purpose of âfreeing herâ.
Before I go further I should give some context. At the beginning of the Taken King expansion for Destiny 1, we see Mara âdieâ. To Uldren, he thinks she actually is dead and is riddled with survivours guilt. As he was there when the Awoken lost to Oryx. As such he disconnected himself from his fellow Awoken upon returning home to the Tangled Reef. Earning the title, the Forsaken Prince. He finds a new companion, Fikrul. The former Archon of the House of Kings. One day Fikrul is killed by a nameless Guardian. With what seemed like a tear, Uldren resurrected Fikrul, the first of the Scorn. Since that day âMaraâ has been talking to him. No-one else can see âMaraâ. As shown in a cinematic where Petra, the Queens Wrath tries to kill Uldren on Earth. âMaraâ tells Uldren to move at the last minute, and thus Petra misses. From Petraâs pov, she only sees Uldren and the fallen of house dusk behind him.
At the end of the main campaign, we learn that the âMaraâ Uldren was seeing was a taken creature called the Voice of Riven. This reveal happens once Uldren succeeds in opening the way to the Dreaming City. The Voice of Riven acts as the end of campaign boss. Uldren is killed afterwards but Petra suspects who is actually behind this and why.
All of the marketing leading up to Forsaken focused on Uldren being the main antagonist. Except for one clip in the launch trailer where we see one of Maraâs arms.
There is another reveal at the end of Forsakens overall story which shows that even the being manipulating Uldren was serving someone else. The overall Story of Forsaken goes
Main Campaign (ends with Uldrens death) â Dreaming City intro (the first half of this has since been removed as of the release of Witch Queen) â Last Wish raid (this ends in the physical death of the true main antagonist of the expansion) â The Corrupted Strike â The three weekly story missions â Shattered Throne dungeon (the reveal of who was really pulling the strings).
From an objective point of view when you factor in everything. Uldren is not the main antagonist of Forsaken. That would be Riven. With Savathun serving in a similar role that Nâzoth was doing in Cataclysm. They are the true mastermind behind the expansions story, but we donât learn about their involvement until the very end. However it was clear that Bungie wanted us to view Uldren as the main antagonist. In which the in universe PC still believes until the very end of the main campaign, but the player begins to doubt well before then.
In fact you could argue that a couple of Destiny expansions were like this. Where you kill the main antagonist at the end of the main campaign but there is still post game stuff that involve other antagonists. Witch Queen did this with Savathun meeting her temporary death at the end of the campaign, but the expansions story was not over. As we still had the mystery behind the sunken pyramid. In which we encounter Rhulk, the first disciple of the Witness. Likewise with Lightfall. Calus is killed at the end of main campaign but half way through we learn that Nezerac, another disciple of the witness is seemingly back from the dead. We kill him off in the Root of Nightmares raid.
Even Dragonflight sort of did this as Razsageth was built up as the expansions main antagonist but she is killed at the end of the first raid. In fact it hard to say if Dragonflight had an overarching antagonist. Iridikron is probably the closest but he was absent for the first third of the expansion. Being imprisoned and all. And unlike Riven to Uldren, he wasnât whispering to Razzy from said prison.
Honestly post game stuff is hard to figure out. Particularly when the post game stuff has just as much story content if not more than the MSQ. In which Forsaken is an example of. Usually the raid is the end of the expansions story when it comes to Destiny 2 (excluding seasonal content etc). With an epilogue style mission. Such as preservation from Witch Queen or the mission where you finally kill the Witness in The Final Shape. But Forsaken continues past Last Wish. The first dungeon of the game is the end of the expansions story and even then it really isnât because of another twist. By defeating Riven you helped her fulfill Savathuns wish. Which was to take the Dreaming City itself. Then when you kill Dul Incaro, Savathuns daughter at the end of the Shattered Throne dungeon, it is revealed that the true horror of the curse⌠is that it is a simulated time loop. Meaning the events of Forsaken post Last Wish happens in the order listed above on a three week cycle (as it was 3 weeks in between Rivens and Dul Incaroâs deaths). That also means Dul Incaro can never truly die. She will always come back when the loop resets. While you canât experience this now, but throughout the various looping resets, you can head to Maraâs throne room to find the real Mara (she she survived the events of Taken King) and you discuss various things. Such as Maraâs frustration that she fell into Savathuns traps not once but twice in the span of a month. She vents this frustration at our ghost when he questions her leadership skills and finally she ends with her taking what forces she can to confront the Black Fleet before it arrives. We the player also see a cutscene of Uldren being resurrected as a Lightbearer. Something our playable character does not know about. Until Season of the hunt anyway.
Side note: If I had a nickle every time the third expansion of an MMO had a Dragon serving an ancient evil, I would have two nickles. Which isnât a lot but weird that it happened twice.
retrospective edit: Oh boy I did not know that post was going to be that long. Even writing down a debate within my own mind if âpost gameâ or post MSQ content should be considered âpart of the main story of an expansionâ or not.
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As early as vanilla, the development of the new plague was understood to be part of the dark ladyâs plans for âall of Azerothâ.
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Hereâs the problem⌠someone was using subjective context clues instead of objective context statements.
âBy order of the Dark Lady, the plague will be further refined.â
âSoon my plague will be ready, then the Dark Lady will understand my vision!â
Fun fact: In real life researchers create âplaguesâ, in labs, for the purposes of better understanding how they work and for the purposes of creating cures for their creations. While these cures are not guaranteed to work on a âplagueâ as found outside of the lab they often help by serving as a good starting point for speeding up the development of âcureâ.
For me the fact that I know how disease research functionally works, even twenty years ago, results in me reading those context clues about developing a plague and not seeing it as the inherently malicious act that so many saw it as.
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From âA New Plagueâ final quest, level 11 in VanillaâŚ
âWhy donât you go see how the Captured Mountaineer enjoys this special drink I made for him? It contains a subtle hint of what The Dark Lady has planned for the rest of Azeroth.â
Thatâs pretty objective.
Edit: Itâs very possible that Afrasiabi wrote this quest. I donât know. Maybe thatâs why he spoke with so much confidence about the character of Sylvanas following the War of Thorns.
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I am unsure why anyone was surprised a group of people eating zombies whose second best known catch phrase is âDEATH TO THE LIVING!â went full steam on the murder train when given the chance.
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That was Putress and Varimathras acting on behalf of the Legion.
Not evil.
Such as?
Almost like the Alliance and Horde were at war at the time.
IIRC, none of us ever really questioned if the Dark Lady was aware of this. For all we knew the lead apothecary, forget his name, was just telling his underlings everything they were doing was endorsed by the Dark Lady, while telling her something else entirely.
Not really that far of a stretch that an ambitious and unsupervised mad scientist analog would push the limits of their mandate⌠which apparently was actually to develop a plague that could kill even the Lich KingâŚ
That said yeah, the lore is a pain in the ace and the writers probably did intend for the Forsaken to be some kind of evil third faction originally or at least to be some twisted counterpart to justify the early endorsement of the Scarlet Crusade by the Alliance.
But like I said, why use it on your allies, even if they are just a means to an end when there was the possibility that it wonât kill the Lich King? Who was the primary target for it.
The smart thing to do would be to use it on the Lich King, get confirmation that he is dead then use it on your so called âalliesâ. But we know Putress was allied with a power that wanted all 3 parties at the wrathgate to die.
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